200 ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND [chap, vii 



after one day the husband declared he was not willing 

 to have her go unless he went too; so the family 

 resumed their walk. 



In this neighbourhood there were multitudes of the 

 big, gregarious, crepuscular, or nocturnal spiders, which 

 I have before mentioned. On arriving in camp, at about 

 four in the afternoon, I ran into a number of remains of 

 their webs, and saw a very few of the spiders themselves 

 sitting in the webs midway between trees. I then 

 strolled a couple of miles up the road ahead of us, 

 under the line of telegraph-poles. It was still bright sun- 

 light, and no spiders were out ; in fact, I did not suspect 

 their presence along the line of telegraph-poles, although 

 I ought to have done so, for I continually ran into long 

 strings of tough, fine web, which got across my face or 

 hands or rifle-barrel. I returned just at sunset, and the 

 spiders were out in force. I saw dozens of colonies, 

 each of scores or hundreds of individuals. Many were 

 among the small trees alongside the broad, cleared trail. 

 But most were dependent from the wire itself. Their 

 webs had all been made or repaired since I had passed. 

 Each was sitting in the middle of his own wheel, and 

 all the wheels were joined to one another ; and the whole 

 pendent fabric hung by fine ropes from the wire above, 

 and was, in some cases, steadied by guy-ropes, thrown 

 thirty feet off" to little trees alongside. I watched them 

 until nightfall, and evidently, to them, after their day's 

 rest, their day's work had just begun. Next morning 

 — owing to a desire to find out what the facts were as 

 regards the ox-carts, which were in difficulties — Cherrie, 

 Miller, Kermit, and I, walked back to the Burity River, 

 where Colonel Rondon had spent the night. It was a 

 misty, overcast morning, and the spiders in the webs 

 that hung from the telegraph-wire were just going to 



